Mumbai, India
18° 58' N 72° 49' E
Nov 06, 2006 13:59
Distance 936km

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stopover

Text written in: English

the train ride from jaipur to mumbai was a little slice of heaven. realized why I'd been SO over-stressed in the last week: bus/train travel has always been for me the time to de-stress, not be bothered, have loads of hours to do nothing.... the only time I really force myself to sit still and relax. all those ghetto bus rides were no where NEAR providing this, so we hadn't had any down time since landing in india.

not so this time around. the overnight train we actually slept - hurrah! and along the way decided to delay the trip south to GOA to instead check out these buddhist caves east of here. so we waited in the train 'Q' (as they write it....not 'queue'), got our next tixs to jalgoan (yippee - daytime train travel!), and had 4 hours to kill in mumbai....

a girl on our train gave a tip on an english bookstore - peds needed to look for SAP dev books (they're subsidized and super cheap here) - so decided to head there. leaving the station we immediately got (attemptedly) scammed by the taxi drivers at the cab stand...including by the supposed official running the cab stand. ee-gads what a way to wake up! we say no to all and find what seems like an honest guy but who tried to rip us off later. typical.

the drive through mumbai was surprisingly relaxing - city reminds me of buenos aires - dirty but with a few cool old buildings. and only 1/2 a gajillion peeps on the street (and no cows), not a full gajillion. this place felt less crowded than even smaller cities we'd been in. maybe have to spend a couple days here afterall....

in any case, bookstore was lame for 'puter books, but I fould a cool conceptual art book including a photo shoot from a guy - john baldessari - whose concept was to 'throw a ball into the air and try to photograph it so it's in the center of the frame'. there was photo after photo of the ball so NOT in the center of the frame.

his inspiration was to 'look at a subject as if you've never seen it before...examine it from every angle, etc etc'....that's damn cool. course peds' comment was 'hasn't he heard of photoshop?'

fair nuf, but the painstaking approach the artist took is so much more art-i-er. and kind of gave me chills. and was a good reminder - no matter where you are. nothing should get so common or typical you can't look at it like you've nver seen it before (maybe applies to people too....)

anywhoo....off to the next town-whose-name-I-keep-forgetting....

 

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Photos / videos of "stopover":

desert views from out the train hard to tell, but this dog is holding a train reservation form. wonder where he wants to go... '1st class waiting room'. note the lady and her kid crashed out on the floor. yeah, that's so first class... discreet clothes changing on the train (don't want to offend the modest locals) typical cabs in mumbai - LOVE em! pimped out interior of our cab in mumbai (this is the guy who tried to rip us off. asshole!)
earlier Entry 80 of 162 later
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